Film Editor Sam O’Steen, A Man Who Could Tell a Joke

Yes, I’ve already written about Sam O’Steen. But I was so enthralled by his Cut to the Chase: Forty-Five Years of Editing America’s Favorite Movies that I  can’t resist turning the spotlight on Sam once again. Of all the films he cut, The Graduate is probably his favorite, because “it was such a huge surprise that it hit the way it did when we really didn’t know what we had.” Sometimes, though, movies he considered masterpieces never did find their audience. Catch-22, the film made by Mike Nichols immediately after The Graduate, is one prime example.

Like all editors, Sam labored hard in the cutting room to make good films better. Sometimes, though, the job entailed salvaging a project that just didn’t work. Take the case of Dry White Season, a movie about apartheid that was shot in South Africa in 1989. The novice director was proud of her “vision,” but it didn’t translate onto film, and because the original editor had “butchered up all the main takes,” Sam was called in for an emergency doctoring job. He was presented with a roomful of footage, but absolutely no paperwork. Fortunately, he enjoyed the challenge of assembling outtakes, jigsaw-puzzle-style, into a coherent story. For instance,“I found this film that wasn’t even shot for the movie: the camera had just been running while this white boy and this black boy [young actors in the film] were playing together, fooling around with a ball.” Sam chose to run this footage over the main title sequence, “because that’s what the story was about, that they were friends, but they were supposed to be enemies.” He ultimately considered Dry White Season some of his very best work, “because it wasn’t a movie, and now it is.”

Then there was the time Sam lopped off an entire season. The 1999 film debut of writer-director Tony Bui was the first American movie shot in Vietnam since the Sixties. Originally called Four Seasons, it told four separate stories, set against appropriate times of the year. But the “Rainy Season” segment was tedious, and Sam chose to highlight the appealing love story of a cyclo driver and a hooker at the expense of less dramatic tales (like that of a sad poet, as well as ex-soldier Harvey Keitel’s search for daughter he’d left behind). The result was Three Seasons, which was honored at Sundance and became a minor art-house success. 

Sam O’Steen had strong opinions on just about everything, like the introduction of computerized editing systems To him, computers were a mixed blessing. Yes, they speed up the editing process, and there’s no danger of ruining delicate film stock, so it’s much simpler to experiment now. On the other hand, because a computer is far easier to master than the old Moviola, everyone wants to get into the act. So the old days of the editor and director cutting in relative solitude are becoming a thing of the past, as producers and studio execs vie to take charge of the finished product.

At the end of this book, wife Bobbie (a veteran editor herself) asks Sam what kind of person makes a good editor. His answer is surprising: “Someone who can tell a joke.” Why? “Because the timing is right and he tells just enough.” Naturally, other skills are useful too, like an ability to be organized, to work independently, and to have total concentration on the task at hand. It’s important to be secure in your opinions, without having a need to show off. And you should recognize what’s important and what’s not. Sam’s favorite expression?  “Fuck ‘em.” 

Cutting Corners With Film Editor Sam O’Steen

Anyone who loves The Graduate admires the work of Sam O’Steen. He was the film editor who gave us such remarkable images as Benjamin Braddock sliding onto a swimming pool raft that suddenly becomes the body of Mrs. Robinson in bed at the Taft Hotel. In the course of a forty-five year career, O’Steen edited twelve films for the late, great Mike Nichols. Nichols encouraged him to be on the set during filming, so he could make suggestions that aided his work in the editing room. Here’s one more of his unique contributions: instead of simply intercutting between the nude Mrs. Robinson and the reactions of a very startled Benjamin, Sam juxtaposed quick flashes of her undraped body with an elaborate triple-take (Dustin Hoffman repeatedly whipping his head around). In his enlightening 2001 book, Cut to the Chase, O’Steen explains this as a sample of subliminal editing. He credits Sidney Lumet with pioneering this approach in The Pawnbroker; he himself considered it for Nichols’ Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf before trying it out in The Graduate. It’s not a logical moment: Ben’s eyes don’t match up with the body parts he’s glimpsing with such astonishment. Instead, O’Steen is following the principle of “cutting for performance, for the build-up of Benjamin’s panic.” 

His work with Mike Nichols is only one facet of  O’Steen’s career, which spanned the years 1961 to 1999. He also edited such classics as Cool Hand Luke, Rosemary’s Baby, and Chinatown. As a director, he was Emmy-nominated for Queen of the Stardust Ballroom (1976), starring Maureen Stapleton as a widow who finds a new lease on life through ballroom dancing. But though he was still directing as late as 1985, the editing room continued to be his real home. Fortunitiously, it led him to a long, happy marriage to a fellow editor with whom he had four daughters. Cut to the Chase is as much Bobbie O’Steen’s book as it is that of Sam himself. It’s basically a Q & A in which she quizzes him about every facet of his career. The fact that she knows the field and is intimately familiar with Sam’s best stories means that the answers she elicits are well worth hearing. The book is not short on good old-fashioned gossip about Hollywood personalities, but it also provides real insight into the tricky business of reshaping movies in the cutting room.

 Some of my favorite stories involve a 1979 debacle called Hurricane, produced by the outrageous Dino De Laurentiis. Here’s IMDB’s capsule description: “The desperate love affair between a young Samoan chief and an American painter, against the will of her father. Amid this man-made tension comes a hurricane so devastating, the lives of the lovers and the entire island are imperiled.” De Laurentiis insisted that this pulpy saga be shot in beautiful but remote Bora Bora, which at the time had no telephone service and no natural resources beyond fish and tropical fruit. Everything had to be shipped in from L.A.: sets, thousands of yards of fabric for costumes, and so on. De Laurentiis built a hotel to house cast and crew, then flew in two of Italy’s best chefs, along with enough food and drink to feed an army. Naturally, everyone went stir-crazy. O’Steen, not one to mince words, bluntly describes star Mia Farrow “eye-fucking” (and more) both director Jan Troell and cinematographer Sven Nykvist. And co-star Timothy Hutton, who turned paranoid during the shoot, is still infamous for the day he peed on De Laurentiis’s spiffy Italian loafers.

More Sam O’Steen to come!

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Irwin Keyes, Eric Caidin, and Some Others: How to Make a Showbiz Life

The late Irwin Keyes, as captured by the Coen brothers

As Labor Day Weekend approaches, I find myself marveling at the number of ways people maintain connections to the film industry. Usually we think of Hollywood in terms of wealth and power. Most entertainment attorneys are looking to segue into becoming producers. And most actors fancy themselves as up-and-coming stars.

But today I want to salute the grunts of the industry, the folks who play the supporting roles, whether on or off camera. I tip my hat, first of all, a guy who – when not on the set -- hung out at my local Starbucks. Irwin Keyes was known to collectors of showbiz trivia as a fixture in sitcoms (like The Jeffersons) and horror films. In the latter, he was helped by his oddly distorted facial features, a result of acromegaly, the pituitary disorder that killed him two months ago, at the age of 63. Anyone who’s seen Irwin play a hitman named Wheezy Joe in the Coen brothers’ Intolerable Cruelty will not soon forget him. If you’ve watched the film, you know it’s definitely not a good idea to confuse your gun with your asthma inhaler. Irwin Keyes, hail and farewell.

Irwin was never a star, but at least he appeared on screen. Countless others are essential figures on the set, but never get to wear a costume and play a role. I’m talking about (for instance) those who train and oversee animal actors. In the words of the industry, they’re “wranglers.” They may be dealing with cats, dogs, livestock, or more exotic critters. In one Concorde film, The Nest, we had an official bug wrangler, who kept watch over our stock of killer cockroaches. Another kind of wrangler, I guess, is the certified teacher charged with making sure that child actors don’t neglect their schooling or otherwise get into trouble.

One friend of mine, Diana Caldwell, comes from a family of actors. She aspired to be a screenwriter, but needed an actual paying gig. That’s why, just out of college, she chose to put her skills as a projectionist to work. Fortunately, she gained entrée into a male-dominated profession when a leader of the local union, one who enjoyed thumbing his nose at the Establishment, decided to take her on. Over the years, she’s learned to adapt to changing equipment, while vastly improving her skills. For years she’s worked for Boston Light and  Sound, whose head, Chapin Cutler, is famed for his work as a film preservationist. She also plies her trade at major film festivals where anything can happen in the projection booth – and usually does.

 Then there are lifelong film fans who turn their enthusiasm into business ventures. An L.A. Times piece recently featured John Wyatt: for the last decade he’s run the hyper-popular Cinespia series of classic film screenings on the lawn of the historic Hollywood Forever Cemetery. On nearby Hollywood Blvd., Jeff Mantor owns and operates the venerable Larry Edmunds Bookshop, which has served cinema buffs for eight decades.  It used to be that foreign travelers, making a pilgrimage to Hollywood, would buy an extra suitcase to take home movie books, movie posters, lobby cards, and stills. Today’s airline regulations make that more unlikely, and – despite the loyal patronage of filmmakers like Joe Dante and John Landis -- the fact that the store is today the only one of its kind in Hollywood cuts down on its attraction for daytrippers. Just last May, Eric Caidin of  the neighboring Hollywood Book and Poster died suddenly while attending a film noir convention in Palm Springs. Here’s to Eric and to Jeff, the last of his breed.

Keeping Abreast of Horror (in movies and in life)

My favorite schlockmeister, Jim Wynorski, once told Time magazine that “breasts are the cheapest special effects in the business.” Jim should certainly know. As the director of such latter-day Roger Corman classics as Sorority House Massacre II as well as his own cheapie exploitation fare (like The Bare Wench Project and The Devil Wears Nada), he has staked his career on nubile young women who’ll come onto the set willing to pop their tops.

But it’s not just Jim. All of Hollywood sometimes seems to be hung up on breasts, to the amusement of the European filmmakers who have long been much more relaxed about the human body. François Truffaut made a graphic visual joke about this contrast in his 1960 New Wave classic, Shoot the Piano Player. In America, the on-screen unveiling of breasts actually changed the course of the movie industry. Back in 1964, Sidney Lumet used the powerful intercutting of two topless moments to highlight the Nazi degradation of body and spirit in The Pawnbroker. Lumet’s obvious seriousness of purpose led his film to receive – after much pondering -- the coveted MPAA seal of approval, and this landmark event ultimately spelled the death knell for the old Production Code.

Today, of course, seeing a woman’s bare breasts on-screen is about as common in a big studio release as in a Roger Corman quickie. On the red carpet, the flaunting of mammaries is very much part of the excitement. No one arrives topless, to be sure, but the peekaboo look is almost obligatory, and not just for MTV types. Such well-toned Hollywood royalty as Angelina Jolie seems to take pride in strategic body-baring. Which made it all the more of a shock when it was announced in early 2013 that Jolie had undergone a preventive double mastectomy in order to lessen her chances of contracting breast cancer.

Jolie chose to be open about her situation in the press, as a way of encouraging other women to make informed choices. One who has benefited directly from her candor is young journalist and author Lizzie Stark. Stark’s powerful 2014 memoir is titled Pandora’s DNA: Tracing the Breast Cancer Genes Through History, Science, and One Family Tree. Like Jolie, Stark is the bearer of a mutation on the BRCA1 gene that almost guarantees breast cancer. Nearly every female member of her family has been afflicted, many at young ages. That’s why Stark, a newlywed still in her twenties, decided to go under the knife herself.

Stark, a gifted writer, confronts the situation in lively, unintimidating prose. Here’s her discussion of various types of cancer: “Some are ninjas—nimble, lethal, and hard to kill—while others blunder around like drunken frat boys—clumsy and slow-moving, but still capable of pushing you down a flight of stairs if you don’t watch it.” She spells out the science of the BRCA mutation, and gives some details about the history of the mastectomy that should make woman glad to be living in a slightly more enlightened age. But the heart of the book is the frank examination of her own psyche as she moves through this whole disfiguring process. One aspect I didn’t expect: in a chapter called “Ta-Ta to Tatas,” she reveals both her ambiguous attitude toward her own post-reconstruction breasts and the way her whole physical self-presentation (hair, makeup, clothing choices) has dramatically changed as she absorbs the new normal. This is not an easy book to read, but I applaud Lizzie Stark for making the best of a really bad situation and moving onward with courage and grace. 

Farewells are in order for two male cancer victims. One is neurologist Oliver Sacks, whose writings  about the quirks of the brain led to such Hollywood projects as the film “Awakenings.” The other, of course, is Wes Craven, who made films about horrific invaders, then faced the ultimate one himself.